Using Bulletin Boards

A bulletin board provides a place to exchange messages. Most bulletin boards are public, which means any member of The Microsoft Network can read them. Each bulletin board has a topic, such as scuba diving, computer graphics, or current events. Users post messages about the topics to do the following:

• Ask or answer questions
• Offer opinions, ideas, or suggestions
• Share facts and exchange information
• Distribute files for other people to copy to their computers

A thread is a collection of messages users can organize chronologically or hierarchically to reflect the flow of the discussion. Messages appear in a bulletin board in three possible default views:

• List View lists all messages in the order they were sent to the bulletin board.
• Conversation View lists all original messages and their replies and is organized according to a conversation thread. To read replies, click the + icon; to read individual messages, double-click a message.
• Attached Files View lists only those messages with attached files. This is an effective way of seeing information that pertains to files rather than messages.

Message views can be further sorted in each bulletin board according to their subject, author, size, or date.

To navigate through The Microsoft Network content tree to a bulletin board

1. In MSN Central, click Categories.
2. In the Categories window, choose a topic by double-clicking its icon.
3. Continue to double-click icons to select subcategories until you are in the forum containing the bulletin board that interests you.
4. In the forum window, double-click the bulletin board folder to see current messages.

To change the view of messages

• In the bulletin board, click the View menu, and then click List, Conversation, or Attached Files.

To sort messages within a bulletin board

• In the bulletin board, click the Subject, Author, Size, or Date button beneath the toolbar to sort accordingly.